Re: DSSSL style editing (was: RE: Positioning...)

[Mike Wexler:]

| With HTML I can create a page in Emacs post and post it to my web
| server.  Then John can download it with Netscape Gold, edit it, and
| post it back to the web server. Then Steve can download it and edit it
| with PageMill and post it back. Then Andrea can download it, modify it
| with FrontPage and post it back.

I will believe in your ability to freely mix and match HTML+CSS
documents when I see it.

| I expect that eventually, we will be able to do the same thing with
| HTML+CSS or even XML+CSS. I don't think this will ever be possible
| with XML+DSSSL.

Other people are less pessimistic than I am about the ultimate ability
to exchange DSSSL stylesheets among different stylesheet editors;
we'll see.

| I think this ability to for users on different platforms with
| different software to share not only viewing of documents, but editing
| of documents is one of the key reasons for the success of the web. I
| would bet a large percentage of the pages posted by individuals are
| modified versions of somebody else's pages, often created with
| different tools.

Perhaps so, but "a large percentage of the pages posted by
individuals" is not "a large percentage of the pages posted".  I think
that HTML and CSS do just fine for individuals.  That's not the
problem space that I personally am interested in.  I'm interested in
the problems relating to large-scale commercial publishing and data
distribution efforts.  XML+DSSSL may or may not be useful to
individuals; that's up to other people to decide.  But the level of
functionality they offer is essential to solving the kind of
large-scale problems that I'm interested in.

I will not attempt to prove, but will for the moment merely assert,
that ten years from now the total number of pages on the Web posted by
commercial content providers will be much larger than the number of
pages posted by individuals.  Whether I'm right about that or not,
that's the problem space in which I'm working.  The kinds of
publishing problems that I alluded to earlier arise from this area.
CSS cannot effectively address these problems; DSSSL can.  That's why
I'm interested in it.

Jon

Received on Wednesday, 5 February 1997 14:12:38 UTC